UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
BULLETIN No. 582 
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY. 
Contribution from the Office of Farm Management. 
W. J. SPILLMAN, Chief. 
Washington, D. C. 
January 7, 1918. 
FARM MANAGEMENT AND FARM PROFITS ON IRRIGATED 
LAND IN THE PROVO AREA, UTAH LAKE VALLEY. 
By L. G. Connor, Assistant Agriculturist. 
CONTENTS. 
Page. 
1 
2 
4 
Source of data 
Summary 
Profits 
Distribution of receipts 8 
Distribution of expenses 12 
The farm family— mortgages 13 
Work horses 14 
The farmer's labor 14 
Influence of outside labor on labor incomes . . 15 
Page. 
Results by type of farming as well as by size. 17 
Possible modifications for greater profit 23 
Labor in dairying 27 
Possibilities of an extension of live-stock en- 
terprises 29 
Uncertain markets and high transportation 
charges 36 
Town-dwelling farmers 37 
Importance of raising home supplies 40 
The farm-management survey discussed in this bulletin was made 
in 1914 to check the results secured in a similar study 1 conducted in 
the same area during the previous year. The object of these surveys 
was to determine, approximately, the profits that farmers receive, or 
may reasonably expect to receive, in the irrigated areas of the inter- 
mountain region. (See Pis. I and II.) New data were collected 
with which to make a more complete analysis of the farm as a busi- 
ness enterprise in an effort to ascertain the factors which apparently 
control the income of the farmers in the above areas. 2 
SOURCE OF DATA. 
Farm-management survey records were secured from 106 farms. 
Two of these were discarded, as one operator secured nearly three- 
fourths of his total receipts from outside labor and the other virtually 
conducted a lodging house. The 104 records used in this bulletin are 
1 Bulletin 117, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. 
2 Many thanks are due the farmers who were interviewed in the prosecution of this 
study. A considerable portion of them had to put themselves to some inconvenience in 
furnishing complete data on the results of their year's work. Acknowledgment is hereby 
tendered them for their hearty cooperation and active interest in the work. Thanks are 
also due the various persons engaged in marketing the farm products of this section 
(particularly to Mr, Wm. Roylance), officials of the Forest and Reclamation Services, 
and to members of the staff of the Utah Agricultural College (particularly to Dr. R. J. 
Evans and Prof. J. T. Caine, III) for information supplied during the course of the study. 
4734°— 18— Bull. 582 1 1 
